


The Ways They Fell in Love

by asculderlifeforme



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-21 02:36:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13731324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asculderlifeforme/pseuds/asculderlifeforme
Summary: Series of one-shots about all the little (and sometimes big) things that made our two favorite agents fall in love.





	1. Coffee Break

It was 10 am, and they had weeks’ worth of paperwork in front of them.

Mulder took frequent breaks to look at other files, throw a pencil into the ceiling, anything to distract him from the mind-numbing work before him.

Scully was typing, typing, typing.

Her glasses were slipping down her nose, a piece of her hair and broken free from the smooth cascade down her shoulders, and it was hanging loosely on her cheek.

The clicks of her fingertips on the keyboard was comforting to him for some reason, though it used to annoy him.

Scully had yawned four times in the last hour, and that was beginning to gnaw at him.

He idly wondered what he did that annoyed her, but he was distracted by another yawn. He got up and left rather suddenly, leaving his jacket behind.

Scully rolled her eyes. He was always too energetic, too restless. He couldn’t sit still for longer than twenty minutes at a time.

The bouncing of his leg under the table in Skinner’s weekly meeting used to annoy her, as did the way his spit out his sunflower seeds.

Now it was just part of her day, listening to the crack between his teeth and the rustle of his pants leg.

Her eyes were crossing in front of her report. Her chin rested on her fist as she read through the last few sentences. There were typos, words that didn't belong. She blinked, but her eyes forgot to open again.

She was sleepy, after spending much of the night awake. She didn’t usually let these cases follow her home, but try as she might, this last one had.

Seeing that deformed baby, covered in dirt from being buried alive, had stuck with her.

Maybe it was her recent revelation that her own body clock was ticking, maybe it was that her neighbors had just brought home an infant son.

She opened her tired eyes to Mulder banging the door against a file cabinet, two coffees in his hands.

He set one down between Scully and her keyboard. She looked up at him gratefully, a smile on her lips and in her eyes.

She took a sip, though it was still hot. Three creams, 2 Splenda. Just how she made it herself.

Mulder smiled back at her, observing the way warmth rose to her cheeks and how her tongue darted out to lick a drop of coffee from her lips.

His stomach clenched, he swallowed.

When he sat back down in his chair, put his feet on the file drawer next to the desk, Scully glanced back at him.

She felt warmth in her chest and it wasn’t from the coffee.


	2. At The End of The Day

It’s 8pm, and Mulder is knocking on her door.

She comes and undoes the golden latch, swinging the door open.

He’s holding up a pizza and a 6-pack, eyebrows raised in a silent question.

Scully shrugs, lets him in.

He goes straight for the couch, while she goes to the kitchen for plates and a bottle opener.

He turns on the TV, turning it to her channel, the one with cooking, instead of his own, the one with true crime series.

He watches her as she comes to sit cross-legged on the couch next to him, her pale legs sheathed only in a pair of white linen shorts. Her red t-shirt is loose and long, almost covering the hem of her shorts.

He stops his gaze at her hips, and looks away. He knows where this line of thinking gets him, and it’s nowhere beneficial to their friendship.

He knows that deep within himself he feels something more for his partner, something raw and feral and needy. But he is hell bent on burying it.

She tosses the bottle opener to him, and he easily catches it with one-handed. He pops the caps off the lagers, and she puts pizza on plates for them.

They sit in silence for a while, watching Japanese men and women cook. His arm is gripping the back of the couch behind her, preventing him from putting his hand on her shoulder or knee.

Just as he’s contemplating just exactly what it would do to their working relationship if he let his hand drop to her shoulders, she leans forward and grabs the remote.

She flips the channel to Unsolved Mysteries, one of his favorites.

She turns her face to him, a small smile on her red lips.

“We watched my show last week. I know how you like this program, alien boy.”

She knocks back her bottle, the cold beer crisp on her taste buds.

He reaches his hand up before he knows what he’s doing, and sees his own thumb trace her lower lip, catching a drop of marinara sauce there.

They keep eye contact for longer than necessary, each waiting, waiting.

_What am I doing here?_

Mulder clears his throat, and tears his eyes away.

He takes a long swig of his beer, and turns his mind to baseball as he’s watching Robert Stack discuss the mysteries of Easter Island.

He chews on imaginary sunflower seeds, his jaw working silently.

He tries to will away the sudden rush of blood to his groin by reciting facts about his favorite team.

He tries to smother the desire to place his hand on her thigh.

He tries to conceal the surge of feelings, so they won’t bubble up and spill over and leave him breathless.


	3. Bookworms

It’s 9am, on a Saturday morning. I had woken up early and decided to get a jumpstart on the day. This small, crowded shop is abuzz with mothers and their children, young couples holding hands, and older adults reading labels carefully. I dump two boxes of cereal into my basket, and make my way to the front of the store.

I pass by the small, metal bookstand. There are some of the latest best sellers in fiction and non. One catches my eye: a small paperback with a deep red cover and cream letters. I saw Scully with this book just yesterday, reading as she ate a turkey on wheat. She had chuckled, then wiped away a tear just moments later. It was odd, having produced two emotions that moved her to break her usual mask of faux coldness. I pluck the paperback out of the stand.

I pay for my items, including the novel, and start my way back home. It’s a cold February day, and the soft snow from last night has turned into a grayish slush by the curb. Beautiful city, D.C.

Opening the door of my stale apartment, I’m feeling a little lonely. Normally, on a great Saturday like this, I’d call Scully and persuade her to follow leads, or go through reports on unsolved cases. But she was gone for a long weekend to her mother’s house, something about her brothers, and had told me in no uncertain terms to not bother her.

I debate starting on a stack of witness statements from a possible Bigfoot sighting in Appalachia. Instead, I pull this novel out of its paper sack. Collapsing onto the couch, still wrapped in my coat and scarf, I begin. I throw a handful of sunflower seeds from the bag on the table in my mouth and tuck them into my cheek.

 

Five hours and countless seeds later, I’ve finished the book. I can see how the book made her emote, but it didn’t do the same for me. I want to call her, talk to her about it. But I won’t, because I’m exhibiting impulse control, something Scully said I didn’t have. Well, I’m proving her wrong.

 

When I see her again Monday morning, her right eyebrow is arched before I walk in the door.

“I thought I told you not to call me, Mulder,” she sighs, her mouth working in that cute way it does when she’s not really mad but is pretending to be.

“I didn’t,” I lied.

“You called my apartment.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t there, were you, Scully?” I grin at her.

She lets out an exasperated sigh, and if that’s not the summary of our relationship, then I don’t know what is.

I think about asking her about the book, about what she thought of it. But I don’t like laying all my cards out on the first hand.

When we stop the pencil pushing for some lunch, she’s eating a salad, and pulls out the book. As she stabs her sad lettuce with one hand and opens the novel to the last chapter, I watch her face surreptitiously as I eat my roast beef sandwich.

She frowns, bites her lip. She must be where the man tells his landlord he’s leaving without saying goodbye.

Her cheeks fill with color, and she’s almost smiling. She must be at the part where the woman meets the man at the airport. She brushes her hair out of her face with impatience.

She’s neglected her salad and is now speed reading the last few pages, her eyes darting back and forth over the cheap paper. Her brows are furrowed as she turns the last page. She’s not going to like the ending. Scully doesn’t like leaving cases without a good, rational conclusion. This book leaves you on a cliff hanger.

She lets out a small huff, shakes her head, closes the book. Picks it up a moment later and reads the last page again.

I pretend to be distracted by her noises, and lift my head up all the way to look at her.

“What’s the matter?” I ask innocently.

“Nothing. I just didn’t like the ending of the book I’m reading.”

“Oh?” Leaving a broad opening like that almost ensures she will elaborate on _why_.

“It’s just… unresolved.”

“Hmm.”

My mind is flitting back and forth, making and changing my decision. I decide to keep my mouth shut, enjoying this small piece of intimacy I feel with her.

She doesn’t continue, and pushes the book to the side, trying to refocus on the day’s work.

 

 2 months later

It’s 6pm on a Wednesday. I stop by a book store on the way home to get Scully’s latest book. This one is a thriller, and shocking enough to give Scully the chills. Seeing her smooth white arm covered in gooseflesh had left me with thoughts best saved for the shower, wondering what else would make her react that way.

She still doesn’t know that I read every book that she reads. It’s my little secret, watching and waiting for her to react. I wish I could be a fly on the wall in her apartment when she reads, where she’s less inhibited. I want to see the way color rises from her chest up her neck and to her cheeks when there’s a sex scene. I want to hear when she gasps when the killer is finally revealed. I want to see her.

 

It’s 5pm on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve just finished my last book only yesterday, and instead of re-reading one I already own, I decide to branch out.

Mulder thinks he is secretive, sly. He’s not as subtle as he thinks. I’ve seen the books that line my shelves mixed in the piles on the floor of his apartment. I’ve noticed the way he leers at me while I read during my lunch hour on slow days. It’s quite endearing, though his motives are unclear.

When I first figured it out, I was a little embarrassed. Some of my book choices weren’t always my _image_. I read things like Stephen King, Vonnegut, sure, but I also read trashy books from the dollar bin at Goodwill. After taking some time to think about it, I realized how much I like it that he does this. It provokes feelings of love, of being loved, within me.


	4. Seeds

Mulder is drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. His jaw is working the gum between his teeth, roughly, overzealous. He runs his tongue along the backs of his teeth. They’ve been in the car for 45 minutes, with more than 2 hours to go. There’s enough gas in the car to make it, but Mulder’s not sure he can.

He _always_ keeps a bag of seeds in the console of his car. When he realized there weren’t any in his pocket, or in the car, or in his bag, they were so far down the interstate it would take too long to pull off and find a gas station, and they were really in a hurry.

Scully cuts her eyes to him, noticing his agitation. She doesn’t think the case at hand is enough to cause this level of Mulder-isms. She looks around the car, and notices the empty cup in the cup holder. He was antsy because he didn’t have any sunflower seeds. His oral fixation was turning into an addiction, she thinks.

Scully pushes her seat all the way back, turns her torso to get at the bag in the back seat. Fumbling for a minute, she pulls her hand back with pure gold.

Mulder’s eyes widen and his mouth hangs open, adoration clear in his eyes.

“Scully, do you really keep this on hand for emergencies like this?” He tears the bag open with his teeth, spits the gum out, and pours a bunch into his mouth. He tucks them all away into his cheek to soften the shell.

“You’re really annoying when you don’t have something in your mouth to play with, you know that?” A twinge of color rises to her cheeks as she realizes what she said and how it sounded.

“Yeah, I know.”

He grins, while using his tongue to pull a seed out and balance it between his molars. The satisfying crunch as the shell opened like a clam for him, producing one tiny seed, gives him the fix he needed. He spits the shell into the waiting Styrofoam cup and tucked the seed under his tongue for later.

He contemplates Scully, and what she’d done. He wonders how long she’s been carrying them. _I guess that’s where some of those bags have come from, and here I thought it was an X-file of its own._ She’d been buying bags _for him_ , keeping them _for him_ , and putting them out _for him_ when she knew he was running out.

He felt something stir inside him, somewhere near his stomach, but deeper. The feeling was warm and full of light.


	5. Chicken Soup for the Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder's sick. Scully helps.

The first sensation I'm aware of is a dry mouth, sticky and thick with sleep. As I breathe in deeply, my throat sears with pain and my nose is useless. My eyes hurt. My everything hurts. 

I reach to the table beside my bed, finding the glass of water I usually kept there. It was empty. Perfect.

I somehow muster the strength to get out of bed and stumble into the kitchen. I refill the glass and chug it like a dying man. During the second refill, the phone rings. 

"Hello?" I croak into the handset. I cough, trying to clear the crap out of my throat.

"Mulder? Is that you?" It's Scully.

"It's me." My voice isn't any better the second time around.

"You're sick. Is it the flu?"

"I don't know, you're the doctor here."

"It's probably the flu. Go to bed, I'll bring you some soup."

I'm frankly not in the mood to argue, or come up with a sly innuendo about her sending me to bed, so I grunt into the phone and shuffle back to the bedroom. 

 

 

I'm awoken the second time by her opening the door to my apartment. She has a paper sack held close to her body, a jug of water in one hand as she fumbles with the lock with the other. She goes into the kitchen and moves stuff around, puts things away, takes things out. I check to make sure I'm decently covered before she comes into the bedroom. 

She enters with a smaller paper sack and a few other items balanced in her arms.

"Mulder, this room smells like stinky feet and bad breath." Her nose wrinkles, quite adorably, and she tries to hide her grimace. 

"It's a good thing I can't smell anything, then, huh?" I shoot her a quick grin as I sit up in bed. She's wearing jeans and a University of Maryland sweatshirt. It's old and faded, but probably very comfortable. I wonder what it would feel like under my fingers.

"Lucky you," Scully murmurs, setting her boxes and bottles down on the bedside table.

She pulls out a mercury thermometer and I dutifully lift my tongue as she places it there. I can't actually breathe anymore. She also places the back of her hand on my forehead, my cheeks. After an excruciating amount of time, she pulls the thermometer out and holds it against the sunlight. Her eyebrows are furrowed, and she holds it up to the sunlight.

"It's the flu, Mulder. You'll be back to work on Tuesday."

"Can't you write me a doctor's note for the whole week? What if I'm still contagious?"

She rolls her eyes at me. She dispenses me two capsules from one box, and gives me a spoonful of liquid that would taste bad, if only my nose could tell me. I have a flashback to my mother forcing Robitussin down my throat as a child.

She pulls out a large bottle of Gatorade and an even bigger plastic container of vegetable soup.

"This is from the Korean place on 5th, it will clear your sinuses in no time. Make sure to stay on top of these meds, every six hours, okay? You have more Gatorade in the fridge. And stay sitting up as much as you can." 

She leaves the room and returns, pushing my TV on wheels. She plugs the cable back into the wall and adjusts the antenna, clearing up the picture.

"You take such good care of me, Scully. What would I do without you?" 

"Suffer and die a most miserable death," she deadpans.

"Naturally."

"Naturally," she repeats, turning to smile at me. My heart thuds heavily in my chest, giving a little squeeze. 

She looks away, blushes. I must be giving myself away. To hell with it all. 

I pat the bed next to me. 

"If you get me sick, I'll shoot you."

"Well, then I'll be the one bringing you spicy soup and drugs."

 


	6. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder pulls Scully off a ledge.

This day was just the same as every other day. Coffee, drive in just before the traffic hits, unlocking the office door. This routine had become more of a rut. Scully was feeling the detachment, the stillness of her mind, creep in. 

Mulder waltzed in just then. Carrying a cup of coffee (black, with 3 sugars) and a donut, with sprinkles. Always. 

They exchanged a usual set of greetings, which may or may not have been verbatim what they've said the last eight mornings. 

Scully sat at her desk and began the backed up file logs. Mulder started looking at potential new cases. The same as any day. 

There are no new cases. There are no people in danger from ice monsters or aliens. The day is over, and it comes to a close in such a quiet manner that when she looks at the analog clock above the door, Scully is surprised that it is half past six, and she should have been home by now. 

"We should go," she murmurs to her partner. 

He hums in response. Scully gathers her things and leaves without saying anything further.

The click of her key in her apartment door and the sound of the latch closing behind her seems deafening in the stillness inside.

Dinner, bath, bed. Same as every other day.

 

Coffee, drive in, entering the office. It's unlocked. Mulder is already inside, at the desk. 

This day has a surreal feel to it. She feels trapped, stuck in quicksand. 

She takes deep breaths, trying to clear her mind from this physical feeling. She knows there is no reason to feel this way. But that doesn't stop her from feeling it.

Soon she is breathing too fast and too deep. Her fingers are cold and tingling as they grip the edge of her desk. Her eyes are focused on a scratch in the wood in front of her, this is all she can see. There is no sound except the blood in her ears and the air moving through her trachea. Both are moving so quickly, she fears they may stop all together. 

She feels a hard grip on her upper arms, tearing her away from her chair. Mulder is guiding her to the floor, where he sits perpendicular to the way she is sitting. His arms are squeezing tight around her chest and for a moment she is completely terrified. Tears are streaming down her face, and Mulder's forehead is on her temple. He is saying something, but she still cannot hear. 

 

Minutes later, the Scully is in Mulder's arms, and he is rocking her gently side to side. His chin is on her head and the feel of his heartbeat begins to keep time with hers. Her tears have dried on his shirt, and she absently thanks god for waterproof mascara. 

"I love you, Scully. I doesn't matter whatever is happening, I am here for you. I will always be here for you."

Her heart squeezes and she knows it is true. 

"I love you, Mulder." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this doesn't seem to OOC for anyone. I think Scully having anxiety / panic attacks is highly plausible given the way she pushes herself to be the very best in whatever she does. 
> 
> Anyway, this is the end of the series. Not every story has been a hit, but I think it has ended with a new beginning. They have confessed feelings, in a very trademark short and sweet manner. 
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed. Please let me know what you like/didn't like about this series or this chapter. Thanks for reading.


End file.
